


Questionable cephalopod bonfire

by letmetellyousomething



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aromantic, Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, F/F, Gen, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 08:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1504331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmetellyousomething/pseuds/letmetellyousomething
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aradia calmly strolled out of the room, a petrol canister in her hand. She made it look very ordinary and peaceful, as if she was watering a flower bed instead, although the liquid still gurgled upwards into the canister.<br/>Rose could appreciate a morbid and even moreso an absurd scene, but this folly was against reason and most laws of science in a grating way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Questionable cephalopod bonfire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tormentedThrenodist (Pantamalion)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pantamalion/gifts).



Aradia laughed inaudibly as the mansion burnt.  
Rose woke up from the sound.  
Everything that burnt was green and all of the fire was green. The embers were just another shade of green. Fire spread from the living room, into the green lounge, the wolf room. Several edges of it weaved together to one goal. The pictures in the mable hallway, the ones that showed questionable plot developments in timelines that had since then fizzled out burnt quite nicely. The fire crept into the pink little girl's room in the basement like it was looking for something, then into the master bedroom where it started to lick impatiently at the floral wallpaper.

In the meantime Aradia watched as the pool table caught fire. Pool tables are in many ways striking metaphors of life, except when they're not. The felt burnt away the quickest, turning into thready ash. Small particles and sparks floated in the warm air current, yet there was no smoke at all. The dark lacquered wood needed longer to ignite, the billiard balls only started to crack and glitch at the very end. Interesting! It made Aradia feel nostalgic for her first death.

The first reaction of any player race to fires is tranquil fascination, or at the very least a dull curiosity. Instead of fear or caution they would likely observe the fire first, searching transfixed for something in its light, probably a behavior derivative of the green sun itself. Then they would fill their air sacks with the fire and suffocate in cubic meters of spreading smoke, burning up on the inside.

Aradia fluttered up before she got that far and glided swiftly through the room. Oh sure, there was plenty of time, but that was just a characteristic of being already too late!

Rose lay sprawled out on the bed, sliding the heavy bed cover off. It had caught fire. She thought about suffocating it by wrapping it up, or blasting the nourishing substance of it away. Rose was about to angle for her favourite purple cushion when she saw Aradia in the door way.

"H'jsdhhoOOG?" She blubbered.

Aradia said nothing, but produced a black match stick, which had been coal dust on her fingers just a moment ago. She fumbled and let it fall to the ground where it slurped up the fire in a backwards whisper.  
Rose frowned at the streaks and puddles of oil that appeared under the retreating fire on the carpet.

Aradia calmly strolled out of the room, a petrol canister in her hand. She made it look very ordinary and peaceful, as if she was watering a flower bed instead, although the liquid still gurgled upwards into the canister. Rose could appreciate a morbid, and an absurd scene even more so; the rise and extinction of the shy turtles in her world had left her a little lonely (and hungry), even though she was constantly in touch with the Noble Circle.

Her psyche... most certainly needed face to face interaction every now and then to remain healthy and sovereign. However this behavior right now was pretty grating. How tasteless to point out the unreality of their situation!

Rose was staring into the vanished fire, listening to the mental backdrop of massacred horror terrors when Aradia came back. Her people and mentors were dying like... well, squishy things in enormous numbers with an supernatural capacity for pain, torturous grief and the ability to empathetically transmit these emotion across the universe without cease.

"Did it work?"

"Glub Glyobbkoogh, mkraacks."

"For shame! But you should be able to get over your denial soon."

When Rose was angry at her she suspected that Aradia only guessed what she was saying, but Aradia was right often enough that Rose would rather accept her as fluent in horror terror than to think of herself as so predictable.

"Grhaul brua'p. 1. ia'lden, 2. RAAGURRRG'H, 3. blaa f'ibth, 4. mur brup brup, 5. g'hoopeptansche. Harow klo'gh," Rose said mockingly.

"Actually those ...sound similar to the five stages of emotional encumbrance. Except for the second to last stage of getting culled by a doctoreaper." Aradia tucked a strand of her sinister mane back.

"Of course your morail could bail for you if it came that far!"

"Ghraul."

"It is quite a practical arrangement. A friend and I gave it a try for a while."

Rose's eyes flickered. This had come up before. She tested the waters, "Hroaap fib'th murp slag?"

Aradia smiled carefully.

"I usually don't do romantic quadrants. I guess we should have talked more about that? But then I died and became a robot. It's funny, because back then I felt guilty for not feeling romantic attraction. Like I was missing a spare piece. However when I actually felt nothing it was nothing like that!"

Rose inched closer, slinging one of her arms around Aradia's upper arm. Weird, arguably important, bilateral Aradia.

"Brlap fhgrood anwagh?" Rose spit out.

"If that was a come-on? Oh yes. Although it was also interesting to see if I could tear this place apart. Its properties are quite different from most in paradox space." Aradia crumbled an invisible ball in her hands to demonstrate her point.

"Brshkrak mf'alp mroook shlupp," Rose reprimanded her, patting her cranium. Aradia let her. Humans did friends-with-pale-benefits all the time and Aradia planned to encourage her. This was a welcome change to their game.

"I'm not a fan. It is your place, but it is morphing into Doc Scratch's mansion. It reminds me of highbloods who furnish their apartment with references to alternian's array of grand jerks hoping it'll rub off on them-"

Rose pulled her over. For a moment Aradia went stiff, although her smile didn't waver. It was probably just due to her exo- or endoskeletone. They nestled together in the crushed bed. Rose wasn't paying too much attention to it, so the bed melted cuttingly around the corners.

Meanwhile Aradia thought it was a pity that the fire hadn't given any warmth to this place. Every atom seemed frozen in place, but at least Rose's first reaction to the fire had been human. And at least it was still shaped for humanoid beings as well.

Aradia asked her if she still wanted to be called Rose, or if she had another, abyssal name like Flutefluff or Shoetoelu.  
"Ralp fhoo'mph anghk shrrrsk?"

"It is a rather human aspect of yourself you're holding onto," said Aradia sheepishly. Rose chose to say nothing.

"As a troll of age you get a title of eight letters and people talk in polite pronouns of you. At least that's the practice among trolls of equal rank," Aradia tried to draw her out like a Nautilus.

"Krak. Glab murp N'toural! Ghaooglook glook."

"Rose and she it is. I can't say that I comprehend your system entirely, but I want to get it right."

She guessed it was similar to a troll defying the gender expression of their custodian, although Rose's guardian matched her own gender just fine. For one thing, it was nice to have this in common. Besides it did make sense for Rose: of course she wouldn't be content with whatever she was assigned to without putting it to the test. And it was good that she still called herself that. Even though it was very cold down here, there was still a light. The question was if the light was at the wrong end of an angler scale beast.

"Say, what do you think about a little ...invitation," she smiled, tugging at Rose's clinging arm. Rose blinked with all of her eyes. She was actually interested in Aradia's dream bubble. Time was hard to pinpoint here, but whenever they had spent it together Aradia had only slipped into her reality, maybe inserted some of her consciousness- nothing more.

"Follow me!" Aradia stood up, caving in the gooey substance that was the bed now. For a moment she puckered her nose, then she was back on track with this psychopomp charade. 

\---

TT: You sound frustrated.  
TT: Like you know you can't change my mind.  
TT: I presume your future footage of me has already verified this?  
AA: i d0nt even need t0 watch y0ur future acti0ns t0 kn0w this  
AA: the kn0wing is the same as this elusive feeling 0f sickness thats been with me f0r years  
AA: pr0bably since bef0re i died c0me t0 think 0f it  
AA: it was always a big setup

Rose shook her head. Where was she? Right, LOLAR. Garish pastel colours, pearly showers, testudinal population. She was wearing her Huptopband computing glasses, a reassuring constancy, as she was typing away. These trolls all wanted their asses handed to them, as if they were starving after a... no, wasn't that quite silly? She read the last sentences she had written on the screen.

TT: You died?  
TT: Revived via dream self, I take it?  
AA: n0  
AA: i never had 0ne  
AA: s0rt 0f a special case here

They all were, but some of them made the effort to transcend these modest game machineries of mortality beyond sprite flubs. It was harsh and desaturated at the top, but somebody had to pick up the slack.

TT: Hmm.  
AA: i just wish  
AA: back when i was behaving recklessly  
AA: i had s0me0ne t0 tell me t0 st0p listening  
AA: even if i ended up ign0ring their advice  
AA: it w0uld have been nice  
TT: What did they tell you?

Rose blinked and the letters bloated, bleeding into a smear. Had she written this? Her eye sight flickered, but her head was perfectly clear. The colors abandoned her, no, creept upwards in streaks as Rose immersed deeper.  
"Khnoof fob. Shlurgh oo're mrp!" she demanded.

The dream bubble was stripped off and washed up Aradia, who looked very small despite being tinged annoyingly red. So much to her "invitation", this had been nothing but a trap, Rose told herself.

Aradia was half turned away from Rose. She watched as her dream bubble burst painfully slow. It was gone for good, excluding her from the other dreamers. Rose zoomed closer.

"...Rose! Wasn't that enlighting?"

Rose was so caught up in the fact that she had fallen for this simple illusion that she let the pun pass. Just like that she had accepted the four flesh mantled bone canes as her limbs, even the split, hard dactyls. She remembered the dead cell threads on her skulls stroking her soft, human face padding.

"They do have an upper limit for repeating a memory! I guess their patience gave out?"

"G'hroog dhhooog fib'th? Haghfh'oourp!"

"One hundred eleven thousand one hundred and eleven times. Maybe they were tired of waiting. Isn't it almost comical given the end of the conversation?"

Rose fumed. A dark ink cloud, which had quite interesting properties in paradox space, blotted Aradia out just like that. 

**Author's Note:**

> The body dysphoria content in the story is not supposed to be related to said character's transgenderness.


End file.
